


All the Colours of Earth

by deborah_judge



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Episode Related, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-24
Updated: 2011-04-24
Packaged: 2017-10-18 15:19:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/190240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deborah_judge/pseuds/deborah_judge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kara has visions she can't understand. Leoben can relate. Set during episode 4.6, "The Road Less Travelled", after Sam's dragged Leoben away but before Kara strides confidently onto the bridge with a plan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All the Colours of Earth

The colours swirl around her, red and green and bright-sky blue, all the colours of a planet she can't remember. Kara can still feel Leoben's hand on her waist and she could swear to the Gods that this is not a dream. Kara's still watching the colours swirl when Sam comes back, tosses the keys at her. "You talk to him if you want," Sam says. "I'm done." She thinks maybe she should say something, like maybe thank you, but the keys jangle in her hand and remind her of the clang of broken metal. There was broken metal on Earth, she thinks, or maybe it was only Leoben's Basestar that was broken. It's hard to remember. She nods. She goes to the makeshift brig.

Her hand still throbs from when Leoben had taken it. Her back still feels the place where his hand had come to rest. He was showing her, she was guiding him, two pieces of a puzzle coming together, but even if Sam hadn't stopped them she doesn't know if they'd have found an answer. But she goes back to Leoben, for the third time that day.

"I need your help," she says to him. "You were in my dream."

"I showed you wonders." His eyes are glassy. He's trying too hard. "We saw Earth together and the great expanse of space."

He's bullshitting. "You don't remember," she says. She does, though. "You frakked me and told me about my mother." She wonders if prophecy, like life, is sexually transmitted. She wants him to still be a prophet. He owes her that, at least, after everything he's done.

She kneels down next to him. He's solid and present, not swirling. Once they stood on Earth together. She thinks that thought, and then thinks that it might be true. Or maybe she's just remembering New Caprica. "Can you say one thing to me that I'll know is not a lie?" she asks.

"I love you," he answers immediately. "I do love you, Kara Thrace." And of course that's true, it's the truth of his life. He's said something true. She bends her head and lets her forehead come to rest on his shoulder. He changes his breathing to match hers. She feels his breath on her neck. She feels his stubble on her cheek. It's rough, like pebbles, like a place on Earth where waves meet the shore. She touches her lips to his. They're not like stone.

His breath is in her mouth. His lips taste like they did on New Caprica. She thinks might want to vomit. She pauses, feels it, doesn't pull away. He doesn't push back, just waits, and that's enough. When she licks into him he tastes nothing like paint, and suddenly she's hungry for him. She straddles him, pushes her tongue deeper, feels the tense muscles of his chest through his shirt. She's tense as well, her fingers gripping into his shoulders. She feels her fear in her mouth and she knows at that moment why she hasn't yet found Earth, because when they find Earth they are all going to live on it. Her people and his, just like on New Caprica. And she'll be the one that made it happen.

She thinks it might be fun to stab him again, to feel his blood on her face and hands. Blood is red like a sunset she might have seen once from a planet, or maybe like an explosion in space. But she doesn't want to explode. She breathes, touches his tongue with hers, remembers the feel of the mandala at her back. You can't fight it, he had said, but she can, she's fighting it now. If she wants to find Earth she's going to have to stop. She wonders if Leoben is ever going to frak her when they're not dreaming. She grinds down, feels him hard through all their layers of clothes. She remembers from the dream what his dick felt like inside her. She remembers begging for it.

When they find Earth, it will be because of what he made her able to do. He planted the seed in her that made it possible. It's like she's having his child. She hates him for being right and for being wrong, for lying and for telling the truth. She wants to blow up both their ships so she doesn't have to do this. She doesn't want to die. She feels the anger, lets it run through her like nausea as his arms close gently around her back. She pulls back from the kiss and presses her face against his chest.

"The word of God is like fire," Leoben says. He embraces her. He's gentle. She can feel his pulse through his hands. "It's like a hammer that smashes rock and breaks the hearts of those who hear it."

"Yeah," Kara says, "must've sucked when that happened to you."

He doesn't say anything, just holds her. He understands. Maybe he's the only one who can.

She's the prophet now. He's given that to her. He's got nothing else left to give her but love. He'll give her everything he has. His eyes are blue like the colour of the sky over Earth. She's got a ship to run, and a planet to find, and she can swear to the Gods that this is not a dream.

**Author's Note:**

> This story was inspired by Jeremiah 23: "A prophet who has a dream, let him tell his dream faithfully." One of the great things about writing Leoben is that I can have him quote biblical verses and it just sounds like he's talking.
> 
> After some deliberation I went with colours rather than colors. I'm terribly inconsistent about whether to write BSG fic in Americanish or Canadianish, but with all my hanging around Canadian Six Degrees fandoms recently I couldn't bring myself to write Leoben-fic with an American spelling in the title.


End file.
